The numbers are more eye-catching even than the millions of photos being uploaded every day or the videos increasingly being watched on the move. According to a new report, the emergence of faster and more powerful telecoms networks is having a significant impact on economies worldwide.

Deloitte has found that a 10 per cent increase in 3G penetration in a country increases GDP per capita growth by 0.15 percentage points. Doubling mobile data usage, moreover, leads to an increase in the GDP per capita growth rate of 0.5 per cent. The impact in developing markets, where there is often little